Will Ravens Free Agents Give Them a Discount?

There is no doubt that the Ravens need to get their upcoming free agents signed, as Terrell Suggs, Ray Lewis and Bart Scott will all hit the open market in March. Suggs talked about giving the team a discount on what he’d be looking for contract wise, and ProFootballTalk.com picked up on that today:

Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs suggested that he and free-agent-to-be linebackers Bart Scott and Ray Lewis might give the team a “home discount” in negotiations this offseason. “We really don’t want to play without one another because we’ve been playing together for so long,” Suggs said. “To line up and see somebody [different] behind me in my case, or lining up seeing somebody different in Bart’s case, line up with somebody next to you and it’s not one of the greatest defensive players of all time, it’s going to be kind of weird. Like I told Bart, he’s been like a big brother since I got there. This was his seventh year [and] my sixth. It’s been me, him and Adalius Thomas from Day One. We’ve already seen one of our other brothers walk. We really don’t want to see too many more of us walk away from the city of Baltimore. Hopefully we all can stay, definitely, on a home discount.”

Suggs played in 2008 under a one-year franchise tender in the amount of $8.5 million, specifically negotiated to suggest his hybrid role. If the Ravens opts to use it again, they’ll have to offer Suggs a one-year deal worth 120 percent of his 2008 pay, which equates to $10.2 million.